Many old or infirm people who live alone are unable to summon help should they become incapacitated. Individuals may in extreme situations expire or suffer irreparable personal harm or further injury resulting from their inability to summon help. Where individuals are living alone, their condition may not be detected for days. Services have been made available which provide for periodic checks on isolated persons, but these services are costly and may be unreliable.
In attempts to address this well-known problem in a society with an aging population, various systems have been developed which automatically call for help by use of a telephone or other means if a patient is unable by reason of infirmity or incapacity to prevent automatic transmission of a message indicating the need for help.
One patented alarm system (Rubinstein U.S. Pat. No. 3,662,111) is actuated by default of the owner. The system generates a local alarm as predetermined time intervals which, if not reacted to by the owner, results in automatic dialing and transmission of a prerecorded message.
Another automatic telephone alarm system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,989,900 to Dibner. In this system a timer cyclically activates an automatic telephone dialer and a prerecorded message is thereupon transmitted. The timer simultaneously activates an audible warning signal so that the patient may abort transmission of the message if no assistance is required. The timer is automatically reset each time the patient removes the handset during normal telephone usage to minimize the need for manual intervention by a patient to avoid false alarm transmission.
Still another emergency alarm and response system is disclosed by Dibner in U.S. Pat. No. 4,064,368 in which a digital transceiver is connected to a patient's telephone line. The system may be triggered by an emergency button or when a timer achieves a predetermined value. The system transmits identification and alarm codes to a compatible digital transceiver at a remote monitoring station and simultaneously activates an annunciator at the patient's residence. The monitoring station digital receiving unit upon receipt of a message, transmits an acknowledgement to the respective system disposed in the patient's residence thereby changing the "alarm signal" to a "call received" signal. An operator at the monitoring station thereupon dispatches an individual to the patient's residence to further investigate the incident.
Other auto-dialing systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,188,392; 3,427,403; and 3,531,597.
Systems for assessing alertness of an individual or vehicle operator employing well-known watch clock mechanisms are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,611,344; 3,312,508; British Pat. No. 1,043,568; and British Pat. No. 745,768.